Event HD1

Thursday 23 November 2017, 4pm - 6pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

Mid Wales (Powys) hub is the regional hub for Computing at School (CAS), a community of individuals who are passionate about giving young people a great education in computing. At hub meets, ideas are exchanged and resources shared. Both Primary and Secondary School Teachers are welcome to attend this meeting as well as individuals who have an interest in education and being creative with technology. Every session includes short presentations from the CAS Powys hub community. You do not need to be a member of CAS to attend. Attendees should bring a laptop with USB port as there will be a hands-on session. For further information on Computing at School please contact Dr Emma Posey, Teacher of Computing, Fairfield High School, Peterchurch and Director of bloc. emma@bloc.org.ukRefreshments available.

Event 2

The Bear

Thursday 23 November 2017, 7.30pm - 9.30pm
Venue: St Mary’s Church

Experience opera like never before with the MWO SmallStages team in William Walton’s one-act comedy classic. The second half of the concert presents Tatyana’s Party Pieces – “an informal reimagining of Pushkin’s great party scene from Eugene Onegin and its ‘entertainments’… a mix of music, poetry and prose, some familiar, some less so. Mid Wales Opera is committed to offering experience to young performing artists, with at least 50 per cent of the company’s singers being under the age of 30 or less than four years out of education.

Event 3

He

Friday 24 November 2017, 1pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

A conversation and special screening of the classic silent short The First Mistake. In his novel He, Connolly recreates the golden age of Hollywood with an intensely compassionate study of the tension between commercial demands and artistic integrity, and the human frailties behind even the greatest of artists. Connolly portrays a man whose life was ultimately defined by one relationship of such tenderness and devotion that only death could sever it: his partnership with the man he knew as Babe. He is Stan Laurel. But he did not really exist. Stan Laurel was a fiction.

Event 4

Reformations: The Men You’ll Meet

Friday 24 November 2017, 2pm
Venue: The Auditorium

Sheers’ contribution to the Festival’s 30th anniversary project is a powerful poem addressed to his two daughters. It conjures a reformation of masculinity that is enlightened and inspiring. Sheers’ recent work includes the poem Pink Mist, the National Theatre Wales play Mametz and the Aberfan television film poem TheGreen Hollow.

Event 5

The Butchering Art

Friday 24 November 2017, 2pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

In the nineteenth century, operating theatres were known as ‘gateways of death’, since half of those who underwent surgery didn't survive. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a melancholy young Quaker surgeon. By making the then-audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection – and could be treated with antiseptics – he solved the riddle of post-operative death and changed the history of medicine for ever.

Event 6

Hay Food Festival Presents: The Modern Cook’s Year

Friday 24 November 2017, 3.30pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

The perfect inspiration for the festive season, The Modern Cook’s Year will show you how to make the most of seasonal produce in 250 vegetarian recipes, using simple, hugely inventive flavours and ingredients. Start of the Year: Spelt with pickled pears and pink leaves and chocolate and blood orange freezer cake; First Warm Days of Spring: Elderflower dressed broad beans and leaves with burrata and chickpea farinata with slow cooked courgettes; Herald of Spring: Spring chickpea soup with salted lemons and rhubarb and rose geranium frozen yoghurt; Summer: Smoked aubergine flatbreads and beetroot tops tart; Autumn: Orzo with tomatoes and feta and honey, lemon and coriander seed cake; Winter: Velvet squash broth with miso and soba and chocolate rye porridge with quick honey pears. “Modern, clever, beautiful” – Jamie Oliver.

Event 7

Zoology

Friday 24 November 2017, 3.30pm
Venue: The Auditorium

A well of memories draws us into the Welsh landscape of the poet’s childhood: her parents, the threat of war, the richness of nature as experienced by a child. In the second of the collection’s six parts we find ourselves in the Zoology Museum, whose specimens stare back from their cases: the Snowdon rainbow beetle, the marsh fritillary, the golden lion tamarin. In later sections the poet invites us to Hafod Y Llan, the Snowdonian nature reserve rich in Alpine flowers and abandoned mineshafts, ‘where darkness laps at the brink of a void deep as cathedrals’. Clarke captures a complete cycle of seasons on the land, its bounty and hardship, from the spring lamb ‘birthed like a fish/steaming in moonlight’ to the ewe bearing her baby ‘in the funeral boat of her body’. The poems tap into a powerful, feminist empathy that sees beyond differentiations of species to an understanding deeper than knowledge, something subterranean, running through the land. Chaired by Imtiaz Dharker.

Event 8

The Lost Words

Friday 24 November 2017, 5pm
Venue: The Auditorium

The creators of this year’s most staggeringly beautiful book read and present their collaboration. All over the country, there are words disappearing from children’s lives. These are the words of the natural world – dandelion, otter, bramble, acorn – all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children’s minds. Macfarlane and Morris offer a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke. With acrostic spell-poems by award-winning writer Robert Macfarlane and hand-painted illustrations by Jackie Morris, this enchanting book captures the irreplaceable magic of language and nature for all ages.

Event 9

Stepping Up: How to Accelerate your Leadership Potential

Friday 24 November 2017, 5pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

An utterly inspiring exploration of corporate management and leadership. The Veuve Cliquot Businesswoman of the Year runs video and tech company Unruly, where she ensures that the company delivers the most awesome social video campaigns on the planet; 91% of Ad Age 100 brands trust Unruly to connect with audiences at speed and scale. It has a presence across 20 different locations and employs 300 people. Wood is also an associate lecturer at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches a course in Mash-Ups, Memes and LOLitics: Online Video Culture and the Screen Media Revolution. She talks to Guto Harri, Communications Director of Liberty Global.

Event 10

Little Me – My Life from A-Z

Friday 24 November 2017, 6.15pm
Venue: The Auditorium

“I talk about my life and work, including Little Britain, Come Fly With Me, Bridesmaids, Les Miserables, Alice In Wonderland and, of course, Shooting Stars. This is a bit different to most memoirs you may have read, because it comes in the form of an A-Z. For instance, B is for Baldy! - which is what people used to shout at me in the playground (not much fun), G is for Gay (because I’m an actual real life gay) and T is for the TARDIS (because I’m a companion in Doctor Who now).” Chaired by Stephanie Merritt.

Event 12

Ghost Nights and Christmas Days

Friday 24 November 2017, 7.45pm
Venue: The Auditorium

The novelist presents an evening of ancient and modern stories to meet the chill of a winter’s night. Winterson’s most recent novel was The Gap of Time, a reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Her new festive book is Christmas Days, 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days from which she will be reading.

Event 13

Bang

Friday 24 November 2017, 7.45pm
Venue: Swan Ballroom

Actors Catrin Stewart and Jacob Ifan, with screenwriter Roger Williams, talk to broadcaster Guto Harri about the acclaimed S4C Port-Talbot-based crime drama - now available on S4C.cymru and with subtitles on the BBCiplayer.

Event 14

The Festival Party Night

Friday 24 November 2017, 9.45pm
Venue: The Auditorium

Smerins Anti-Social Club have been firing up festival crowds and gig-goers across the land for the past 15 years with their inimitable blend of brass-heavy funk, swing, rock, drum 'n’ bass, and ska. Although they’ve made ripples on the radio with releases such as their infamous dub rendition of the Doctor Who theme, it’s their enviable reputation as a live act that makes them such a great night for celebration.

Event 16

The Poetry Room: Bondo and Mama Amazonica

Saturday 25 November 2017, 10am
Venue: The Poetry Bookshop

Readings from two new collections by two of Britain’s most gifted writers. Bondo is Menna Elfyn’s latest collection in Welsh and English. Her title means ‘eaves’ in Welsh, referring to poems about getting close to language as sanctuary. Other poems were written episodically over a number of years. This meditative work began simply as a personal engagement with the grief of Aberfan, expressing solidarity with a nation's wound. Bondo is also the voice that echoes the role of the Welsh bard as remembrancer.

Petit’s Mama Amazonica is set in a psychiatric ward and in the Amazon rainforest, an asylum for animals on the brink of extinction. It reveals the story of the poet’s mentally ill mother and the consequences of abuse. The mother transforms into a giant waterlily (Victoria amazonica), and a bestiary of untameable creatures – a jaguar girl, a wolverine, a hummingbird – as she marries her rapist and gives birth to his children. Petit does not flinch from the violence but offers hope by celebrating the beauty of the wild, whether in the mind or the natural world.

This event has taken place

Please log in to add this event to your wish list so we can notify you in case of further availability

Event 60

Obama: The Story of the Election and Legacy of America's 44th President, in Photos and Comment

Saturday 25 November 2017, 10am
Venue: Swan Ballroom

Here’s the politician, leader of the free world and global icon as portrayed on the covers of the world’s magazines and newspapers during his presidency.

The author is joined by the editor of GQ for a revelatory conversation about portraiture, power and propaganda. Arogundade will present a selection of amazing covers from Barack Obama’s 8-year presidency, along with ‘Obama vs Trump’, comparing his front pages with those of America’s current president.

Arogundade is the author of ten books, including ‘Black Beauty’, his debut novel, 'The Sexual Language of Strangers' and ‘Obama: 101 Best Covers’. ‘Black Beauty’ was honoured by the New York Public Library and was the subject of a three-part BBC documentary.

Event HD2

The World Of Moominvalley

Saturday 25 November 2017, 10am
Venue: The Auditorium

Escape to the magical world of the Moomins and their friends as it is explored in this beautiful book, The World of Moominvalley. Join the author as he delves into the background to the classic Moomin stories and reveals the richly creative life of their author Tove Jansson. Moomin fans old and new will be entranced by the wealth of knowledge that this book adds to the familiar stories.

Event HD4

Outdoor Cookery Session

Saturday 25 November 2017, 11am
Venue: Black Lion Green

Rooted Forest School is running outdoor sessions for children and their families on Black Lion Green. The sessions explore our ancient relationship with fire and cooking, using traditional methods to heat food in the cold winter months. Children will have the opportunity to bake bread over the hot coals while listening to a traditional winter story. (rootedforestschool.co.uk)

6+ (tickets required for children only)

This event has taken place

Please log in to add this event to your wish list so we can notify you in case of further availability